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The Broth Lady's Bolognese

Some would say I'm bordering on obsessed, possibly bossy when it comes to my food choices and feeding my family - I call it committed! Committed to leading a healthier, happier life and helping my kids make good food choices now and in the future. I want my kids to eat as much unprocessed food as humanly possible and this is how we give it our best shot!

I've found that after creating Love & Bones Broth every inch of available time has been sucked up by simply making Bone Broth and supplying it to the masses and what I want to do the most, apart from supplying the children at The Children's Hospital with 'real chicken soup' and Love & Broth Icypoles was to write my first cook book. Week after week, excuse after excuse, still nothing.This week I've decided it's time to pull my finger out and begin sharing with each and everyone of my devoted L&BB fans a special recipe from yours truly using you Love & Bones Broth! Hopefully this will give ideas on how best to incorporate Love & Bones Broth into your daily diet.

Let's begin with and all rounder freezer favourite...only one of my children objects to this and that's because she refuses to try it.

The Broth Lady's Brothy Bolognese

I find filling the freezer with ‘staples’ like bolognese is the way to a headache free week. Where the cook of the house - whether it be mum or dad is not losing their mind trying to think of something nutritious to put on the table for dinner in a minutes notice.I find if my batch is big enough this lasts a month in our freezer - we make plain old pasta with bolognese and for those of us in the family not consuming processed carbs with baked sweet potato (occasionally with melted cheese on top and under the grill), with zucchini spaghetti, Lasagna, shepherds Pie with mashed potato on top, or simply with wilted greens through it.Make sure you have a draw full of glass pyrex containers or old glass jars or bottles - I use a lot of these when storing and freezing meals.

to this we add 1kg of the best quality pastured / grass fed and finished beef mince we can get our hands on and your choice, you can also mix it up with half beef half veal or half beef half pork.

then comes our veg, I use and always have either 4 cloves garlic and 1 large onion (or only one if the other being garlic is out of season), 2 stalks of celery - I like to use the inner heart, 2 large carrots, 1 zucchini, handful of both rosemary & sage and lastly a good handful of parsley

things that make my bolognese different from the usual and these tricks I have borrowed from many incredible Italian nonna's and nonno's that I have had the pleasure of crossing path's with and tasting their sauces - 10 black olives (pips removed) and 6 cloves, a dash (half a cup of some kind of red wine preferably preservative free)and lastly a bottle of the best Passata you can get your hands on and a tablespoon or 2 of Italian tomato paste

let's cook it;

pull out the biggest cast iron pot you have, nothing thats coated in a nasty substance or peeling, we are trying to be healthy and we don't want that to kill us in the process.

on medium heat melt your fat - be it butter or tallow.

gently fry your onion, celery, rosemary & sage and garlic - which you will mince in a food processor or have your sue chef chop very finely for you.

once these are fragrant and screaming for you to carry on, add the meat and fry gently till it starts to caramelise

add your carrots and zucchini which you have food processed or your sue chef has prepared and fry for 10mins or so till soft

after this add the wine and wait for it to cook out and evaporate just a bit

then in goes the rest - broth, tomatoes, olives, cloves, a bay leaf if you wish and salt and pepper

stir well and let it gently come to the simmer, lid on and into a pre-heated oven at 100c / 120c and let it cook low and slow for at least 3-4 hours stirring every now and again - if it begins to look dry add the other half a litre of L&BB or some filtered water.

once cooked allow to cool before portioning up into your containers

sometimes nothing quite cuts it like a bowl of bolognese any which way you take it!